Your Daily Phil: National Challah Day offers taste of ‘Jewish joy’ to kick off JAHM
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a panel discussion yesterday on the future of philanthropy at the Milken Institute Global Conference, and on National Challah Day, which was marked on Saturday, to kick off Jewish American Heritage Month. We feature an opinion piece by Rabbi Simcha Scholar about linking volunteers to pathways to communal leadership, and a piece by Rabbi Erez Sherman about a bridge-building effort between L.A.’s Jewish and Indian communities. Also in this issue: Rabbi Menachem Creditor, Sergey N. Semenov, Uri Ben-David and Paz Beniamini and Amy Sorensen Ben-Dov.
Today’s Your Daily Phil was curated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, Opinion Editor Rachel Kohn and Israel Editor Justin Hayet. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
The Milken Institute Global Conference continues today in Los Angeles. Speakers today include outgoing World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain, World Central Kitchen CEO Javier Garcia and KIND Snacks’ Daniel Lubetzky. One of the day’s first sessions is a panel hosted by the Milken Family Foundation’s Richard Sandler focused on antisemitism, featuring American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, the University of Pennsylvania’s Steven Weitzman, Pepperdine Dean Pete Peterson, Sinai Temple Senior Rabbi Nicole Guzik and journalist and philanthropist Jacki Karsh.
Birthright Israel Foundation is hosting its New Jersey Gala honoring the Cooperman family this evening in Livingston, N.J.
A Good Option and Bereisheet Tech are hosting an event called Building Companies Shaping Nations in New York this evening. The event will feature a conversation with Chemi Peres, managing partner of Pitango Venture Capital and son of former Israeli President Shimon Peres.
The Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative is holding its 2026 Hall of Fame induction ceremony today in Bryant Park. Those being inducted this year include Ari Ackerman, Michael Fuchs, Michael Hershman, Melissa Manchester, New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, David Milch, Richard Price, Josef and Devora Wilhelm, Tanya Zuckerbrot and Ariel Zwang.
In Washington, Hostages and Missing Families Forum U.S. co-founders Matan Sivek and Bar Ben Yaakov are being honored tonight with the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation’s humanitarian award. The foundation will also honor Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Al-Khulaifi with its “2026 American Hostage Freedom Award.”
What You Should Know
Philanthropy’s success in tackling a slew of compounding crises might depend on how well institutional, corporate and individual funders can play with others — and whether they can “build” instead of “fix,” a panel of top foundation leaders said yesterday during a panel on philanthropy at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim.
The panel, titled “Investing in Hope: Philanthropy for What’s Next,” included speakers from some of the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States: Tonya Allen, president of the McKnight Foundation; John Palfrey, president of the MacArthur Foundation; Maura Pally, executive director of the Blackstone Charitable Foundation; Shamina Singh, founder and president of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth; and Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The panel was moderated by Melissa Stevens, the Milken Institute’s executive vice president of philanthropy.
In addition to greater cooperation and courage, several of the panelists called for philanthropists and their foundations to be more generous — as both the situation demands it and as ultra-wealthy individuals have grown even wealthier in recent years.
“The truth is, we are at a moment, globally and nationally, in the U.S., where the one group of people who have grown significantly wealthier over the last decade are the extremely wealthy. And so there is a massive potential to give at greater scale and at greater impact,” said Suzman, whose foundation recently announced it was spending down over the next 20 years.
Asked by Stevens how to get more funding “in the game,” Palfrey suggested that philanthropic foundations increase their payout floor, citing the MacArthur Foundation’s decision to raise its level from 5% to 6%.
“There is more need in the world. We can move the capital. We think there will be a higher social return on the dollars out the door than in our endowments,” he said.
KNEAD TO KNOW
OneTable and Challah Back Girls kick off Jewish American Heritage Month with National Challah Day
Fanboys and fangirls streamed into Fantom Comics in Washington on Saturday for Free Comic Book Day, where the Dupont Circle comic shop handed out 2,500 free comics to enthusiasts, but the day before, a different kind of groupie amassed nearby, looking for a more nourishing freebie — hunks of challah — as part of the third annual National Challah Day, which fell on Saturday, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher.
Good news: National Challah Day, which was started by Challah Back Girls, a Teaneck, N.J.-based sister-owned business that donates a portion of its proceeds to charity, expanded significantly this year through a partnership with the Shabbat dinner nonprofit OneTable. “You don’t need me to tell you that we need more good news and more Jewish joy out in the world, and Shabbat and challah are such beautiful and natural opportunities for that,” MJ Kurs-Lasky, senior director of campaigns and growth at OneTable, told eJP.
MISSING LINK
We need more paths to the pipeline for Jewish communal leadership
“We talk often about the need for the next generation of Jewish leaders. We worry about who will step up, who will give, who will lead. But the truth is, we are not lacking passionate young people. We are lacking a clear and intentional path to help them become leaders,” writes Rabbi Simcha Scholar, CEO of Chai Lifeline, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
From helpers to leaders: “Over the years at Chai Lifeline, I have met hundreds of young volunteers who care deeply about their communities. They show up. They give their time. They want to make a difference. And yet, for many of them, there is no clear next step. No roadmap for how to grow from someone who helps into someone who leads. This is not unique to one organization. It is a broader challenge across the Jewish nonprofit world.”
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
A new alliance between Jewish and Indian communities
“At Sinai Temple [in Los Angeles] on Shabbat, April 18, and the following day at BAPS Hindu Temple, Jewish and Indian community leaders met with a seriousness that went beyond courtesy. They were not there to observe. They came to begin building something that, until now, had largely existed only as a possibility,” writes Rabbi Erez Sherman, senior rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Common ground: “Both Jewish and Indian traditions carry, in different forms, the idea that the world is unfinished, and that human beings are responsible for shaping what comes next. In Jewish thought, this is expressed through tikkun olam. In Indian traditions, parallel ideas emerge through different languages and frameworks, but with a similar insistence on responsibility beyond the self. When these traditions meet, the question is not only what they believe, but what they can do together.”
Worthy Reads
Not Just America: In The Independent, Ben Judah posits that the “golden age” of Jewish life in the Diaspora has ended. “Today, with the Jewish community feeling that many spaces, from social media platforms to pro-Palestine marches on the streets of London, or the arts, have normalised a kind of attitude to Israel they find antisemitic, demonised any connection to it and rolled their eyes at the attacks they are under, there is a profound Jewish alienation instead of the old enthusiasm. There will be less Jewish energy powering these cultural and political engines of the West going forward.” [TheIndependent]
Uncoupling the Covenant: In The Times of Israel, in response to student protests over Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s commencement address at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Menachem Creditor argues that normalizing anti-Zionism within legacy institutions like JTS risks fracturing the global Jewish community. “There is a dangerous confusion taking root in parts of our community, a claim that one can stand within the tradition of serious Jewish learning while severing Judaism from Zionism. … The real danger is not that a handful of students dissent. Dissent has always been part of our tradition. The danger is that we begin to treat anti-Zionism as just another legitimate Jewish position, one among many, equally rooted, equally valid. It is not.” [TOI]
The Right Kind of Jew?: In the Jewish Review of Books, Dara Horn reviews Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s new memoir, When We See You Again. “It is a reminder that beneath all the armor each of us must now wear in public, we are actually wounded, grieving mothers and fathers and daughters and sons, and we are allowed to weep. … Part of the galvanizing appeal of the cause of the hostages for worldwide audiences was that the hostages fit into the category of the kind of Jews that non-Jewish (and Jewish diaspora) audiences are more comfortable with: Jews who are powerless. … Goldberg-Polin is a woman of unfathomable energy and courage, but this unexamined and unconscious attitude toward Jews was part of what made it possible to share her public grief on mainstream American media.” [JewishReviewofBooks]
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump issued a proclamation for Jewish American Heritage Month, calling on Jewish Americans to observe a “national Sabbath” May 15-16, in “special honor of 250 glorious years of American independence and on the weekend of Rededicate 250 — a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving”…
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned of growing anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment on both sides of the political aisle, saying that he doesn’t “want to wake up in five years and find ourselves in a country where both major political parties are unequivocally anti-Israel and unapologetically antisemitic,” in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference…
During its second day of public testimony, Australia’s royal commission into the circumstances that led to the December terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach heard from Jewish parents who described ongoing, “normalized” antisemitism in Australian society; the commission also heard from a paramedic who faced antisemitism from both patients and other emergency responders, one of whom threatened to “skin you the way my family skinned yours in the camps”…
Multiple Jewish homes, a synagogue and a Jewish center housing a preschool were vandalized overnight in Queens, N.Y.…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch for a private tour of the Jewish Children’s Museum in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to discuss security and educational outreach with co-founder Devorah Halberstam…
A new poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute reveals that support for the U.S. military campaign against Iran among “connected” American Jews has slipped to 60%, with the sharpest decline occurring among those who identify as leaning liberal…
A new Israel Democracy Institute survey, meanwhile, found that a majority of Israelis — 59% — believe that ending the war with Iran under the current conditions is “only slightly or not at all aligned with Israel’s security interests”…
The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel named its three recipients for this year, each of which will receive a $100,000 cash prize: Sergey N. Semenov, a chemist at the Weizmann Institute of Science; Uri Ben-David, a cancer biologist at Tel Aviv University; and Paz Beniamini, an astrophysicist at the Open University of Israel…
Palantir announced record-high first quarter earnings of $1.63 billion in sales amid the company’s entry into the AI space and efforts to make inroads in Washington; CEO Alex Karp said that the company’ “biggest problem currently is demand in the U.S.,” adding, “We just cannot meet demand”…
Bypassing military safety restrictions and police checkpoints, thousands of Haredi pilgrims entered Mt. Meron in northern Israel last night for Lag B’Omer celebrations despite active threats of missile fire…
The Aspen (Colo.) Times spotlights the Aspen Teen Giving Circle, an interfaith group of 25 high schoolers from the Aspen Jewish Congregation and Christian group Young Life, which raised more than $30,000 for local nonprofits…
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a unified national response to a severe spike in domestic antisemitism…
In an onstage interview with Hillel of San Diego, Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs reflected on his career, family and philanthropy…
The Egyptian national accused of firebombing participants in a Boulder, Colo., march to raise awareness for the Israeli hostages last year, killing an elderly woman and injuring a dozen others, will plead guilty to a series of charges including murder…
The New York Times looks at the rise in settler violence targeting Palestinians in the West Bank…
Doris Fisher, who with her husband, Don, started The Gap in 1969, died at 94…
Major Gifts
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation and the Mandel Supporting Foundation made a $125 million gift to Case Western Reserve University. This marks the largest single gift in the foundation’s history and the largest gift ever to higher education in Ohio. It comes after a number of major donations to the local Jewish community…
Last night’s Met Gala raised a record-breaking $42 million to benefit the museum’s Costume Institute, bolstered by principal sponsors Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos…
At its annual gala, the Jewish Family Service of San Diego raised over $2 million to support vulnerable individuals and families across the city…
Transitions
The Nathan Cummings Foundation selected Amy Sorensen Ben-Dov as the next chair of its board of trustees…
Rabbi Corey Gold was named director of college and post-college programs for Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem …
Kan reporter Suleiman Maswadeh is stepping into a new role at Israel’s Channel 13 as the network’s Washington correspondent…
Elliot Cohen is joining the Trump administration’s Board of Peace after being detailed to the Office of Special Envoy for Peace Missions…
Pic of the Day
Representatives of chevrot kadisha (religious burial societies) from across North America gathered last week in Edison, N.J., for the Men’s Chevra Kadisha Leadership Conference. The convening was hosted by the Orthodox Union and National Association of Chevra Kadisha. (A similar conference for women was hosted last year.)
The gathering featured discussions on topics related to burial and the often under-discussed purity rituals that are conducted beforehand.
“The people who devote the most time and energy to serve Klal Yisrael often go unrecognized, by choice,” Rabbi Ezra Sarna, from the OU, who organized the conference with Rabbi Shmuel Fromowitz of NASCK, said in a statement. “They do their chessed quietly. Yet to be in a room with others who understand their expertise and who are similarly carrying Klal Yisrael on their shoulders gives them strength.”
Birthdays
Executive director of Micah Philanthropies, Deena Fuchs…
Senior U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert W. Gettleman turns 83… Best-selling author of 20 novels featuring fictional Manhattan prosecutor Alexandra Cooper, written by the former head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Linda Fairstein turns 79… Retired chief judge on the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, he was once president of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, Peter B. Krauser turns 79… Docent at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ruth Klein Schwalbe… Gayle Weiss Schochet… Member of the Knesset, almost continuously since 1988, leader of the Ashekazi Haredi party United Torah Judaism, Moshe Gafni turns 74… South African-born former president of American Jewish World Service, Robert Bank turns 67… David Shamir… Pulitzer Prize-winning author of three nonfiction books, historian and journalist, Tom Reiss turns 62… Senior managing director of Jewish Funders Network, he is a graduate of Yeshiva College and Yale Law School, Yossi Prager… Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer, known for “The Simpsons,” Josh Weinstein turns 60… Special education consultant, Nancy Simcha Cook Kimsey… EVP of BerlinRosen, Nicole Rosen… Executive director of public relations at UJA-Federation of New York, Emily Kutner… Head coach of the football team at the University of Washington, Jedd Ari Fisch turns 50… President of Charleston, S.C.-based InterTech Group, a global holding company, Jonathan M. Zucker turns 48… Television news correspondent, print journalist, stage and film actress, entrepreneur and pro-Israel activist, Lara Berman Krinsky turns 46… Former Israeli national soccer team captain, he also played for Chelsea, West Ham United and Liverpool in the English Premier League, Yossi Benayoun turns 46… Mayor of Bat Yam, Israel, Tzvika Brot turns 46… Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives since 2013, Michael H. Schlossberg turns 43… Former professional golfer, now an orthopedic surgeon, David Bartos Merkow, MD turns 41… Partner at New Enterprise Associates and a member of the inaugural class of the Schwarzman Scholars program, Andrew Adams Schoen… Maxine S. Fuchs… Blake E. Goodman… Basketball player selected 27th overall by the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the 2025 NBA draft, Danny Wolf turns 22…
